Traffic modeling and performance evaluation of wireless Smart Grid access networks

The most challenging issue in Smart Grid (SG) communications networks is the management of a vast amount of SG traffic in the access network, which connects power substations to a large number of SG monitoring devices. In this paper, we develop an analytical traffic model for SG access networks based on a priority queuing system. The SG traffic in the access network is classified as Fixed-Scheduling (FS) or Event-Driven (ED). The FS traffic is an operational traffic, which occurs on a periodic basis, such as smart meter readings. The ED traffic, which is assumed to have a higher priority, occurs as a response to electricity supply conditions, such as demand response. To date, we have not seen any traffic model for SG access networks, which incorporates the different characteristics of ED and FS traffic. By using the proposed model, we derive expressions for the mean buffer length and queuing delay of each traffic. The derived analytical expressions are validated by a wireless network model with real-world traffic profiles from the Ausgrid Smart Grid Smart City project and shown to agree well with the simulations.